Life Domestic
by Beloved-Stranger
Summary: Everything is okay, he tells himself.  Right now, everything is okay…  Right up until the day its not.
1. New Kid on the Block

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. Except the annoying one in the pixie-cut.

**Spoilers:** Like, everything. 1 through 5 and all that crazy jazz.

**AN:** I am a bad, bad person. I have stuff on hold, and four different fics that I owe a few chapters to (plus a reading list as long as my arm) and here I am starting a new fic. I am the _worst author_ on the face of this earth.

**

* * *

1 - New Kid on the Block**

So, apparently, when your best angel buddy heads back up into Heaven to keep order he gets a bunch of less important angels to send hither and thither and basically treat as a pack of set PA's (and as Sam said, so long ago, they're kinda like slaves).

Also, Cas seems to have grown a few decency bones while he was down here and still cares about what happens to Dean.

Awesome.

Turns out, not so much. Cas cares so much, it seems, that he's sent down one of his little PA/slave/less-holy-than-_moi_ angels to keep an eye on Dean for him.

The one he's sent is Achira (that's ah-CHEE-rah, if you're wondering – personally, Dean thinks it sounds a little too much like achiri, which are about the frigging creepiest kind of demon you could find) and she's new. Like, _really_ new. We're talking fresh-out-of-the-box, never-seen-the-earth, OMG-what's-with-all-the-humans new. Cas sent him a _baby_ angel.

(Dean will later discover that Chi is, in fact, just shy of seven-hundred. But, you know, still. Baby in angel years.)

In any case, he's got her. She's not too bad, really. It's a little alarming, at first, for Lisa and Ben to have an angel popping in and out of the house at all hours of the day – especially with first entrance she made…right through the flat-screen – but they're adapting admirably. Ben finds it kinda funny, actually. Mostly because Chi? Sucks at flying. Or if you're going to be more precise about it, she hasn't quite nailed the landing part yet.

"After seven-hundred years of practice?" Dean asks incredulously.

"Yes, but I wasn't corporeal then!" Chi tells him earnestly. "I can land perfectly when I'm disembodied!"

Of course. Makes perfect sense.

This leads onto Chi's vessel. Picture college age, pixie-cut brown hair and the sort of face that makes you think 'Why is Dakota Fanning in my living room?'

"Oh," Chi tells them with a wave of one small hand, "Lillian. She's gone. Said I could take the vessel and then took off upstairs. Coma, you know. The body can breathe on its own, but that's about it."

Uh-huh.

Creepy.

It gets better.

Chi's body is basically her own. She's alone in there. What this means is that the five senses belonging to that body are hers, too. Dean's not sure if this ever happened to Cas (mostly because he's not sure where Jimmy is in all of this – dead? Alive? Exploded?) But if it did, Dean didn't see it. 'It' is a previously non-corporeal creature getting up close and personal with humanity.

Boy howdy.

It's like a whirlwind hit the kitchen, face-planted the TV and is currently making sweet celestial love to Lisa's back garden. The freesias will never be the same again.

"I think we better leave her to it," Dean mutters, drawing Lisa away from her ruined flowerbed.

Two hours later Chi flutters inside smelling like flowers and _thisclose_ to glowing from the inside. She looks blissed out and has a wide dopey smile on her face.

When Dean checks on the garden, instead of a nicely tamed little patch of suburban and a relatively orderly flowerbed there is a scene out of a children's picture book.

The flowering cherry sapling isn't a sapling anymore and is flowering out of season, the freesias now cover a crescent of the lawn big enough to park the Impala on and the back fence has disappeared completely under the combined onslaught of at least three colors of climbing rose, jasmine, ivy and something Dean's pretty sure is honeysuckle. There are unruly lavender hedges. There are red hot pokers. Bird of paradise. Daffodils. Tulips. Sunflowers. Flowers and plants and shrubbery Dean doesn't have names for.

The undergrowth rustles.

Dean looks down.

A _badger_ peers up the length of its striped nose at him.

"Holy crap," says Dean.

Over his shoulder in the kitchen, he can hear Chi apologizing for ruining Lisa's flowers.

"But it's alright now," the baby angel says.

Lisa looks up at him as he walks back in. She raises her eyebrows in a silent question.

Dean nods.

He'll show her in the morning. It'll be worth the look on her face.

* * *

**AN:** There's actually a little bit more of it if anyone's interested.


	2. Snap, Crackle, Pop

**AN:** and to think this started life as a comedy...

**

* * *

2 - Snap, Crackle, Pop**

The most terrifying moment of Dean's life to date is when he gets home from work early and hears snarls coming from the backyard…and Ben's yell of fear.

"BEN!" he roars, and is around the side of the house like a shot.

The garden is a mess, branches broken, flowers crushed, the creepers on the back fence hanging in shreds. There are chunks of turf scuffed out of the lawn, dirt scattered across the grass. (Later on, Dean will notice the dead patches in the shape of paw prints…)

The badger lies on its side in their little field of flowers, blood heaving sluggishly from its open belly. Ben stands over the pathetic body with his baseball bat, tears and panic on his face, futilely trying to keep back the huge black shape that snarls at him with bloodied jaws.

"Hey!" Dean barks without thinking, going for a gun that no longer lives in his waistband.

The thing turns, and for a moment he thinks, _hell hound_ – but hell hounds can't be seen by those who aren't damned and don't have one big lambent green eye in the centre of their foreheads.

Black Dog. Death omen. _No._

"Get into the house, Ben," Dean says while keeping his eyes on the Dog, trying to keep its attention. "Now."

Unbelievably, despite his evident terror, Ben shakes his head. "No."

"Ben…"

"Not without Singer."

The badger… "He's dead, Ben. You need to get inside."

"He's not," Ben says desperately, too loudly. "He's still breathing –"

The Dog's one eye flickers away from Dean.

"Ben –!"

The boy takes a step back just as the Dog turns, bellowing hoarsely, towards him.

When he looks back, Dean will see only a series of awful snapshots filled with equally awful detail.

The Dog's wide jaws, its teeth, each the length of his pinky finger and glistening with gore.

Ben's face as the thing lunges at him, the way the color drains out of him when those jaws close on his arm.

Ben screams, "DAD!" just as one of the bones in his arm breaks with a wet snap.

Dean's on the things back before he has time to think, his arms around its neck and his fist pressing against its windpipe. It lets go with a yelp of surprise and Dean hauls it back, both of them falling to the side.

"Ben, GO!"

He has just enough time to see Ben scramble for the back door before the thing is on him, blood and saliva foaming at the corners of its open jaws, bearing down with a roar. Dean manages to get the knife that still lives in his boot and keeps it at bay with quick, in-and-out jabs. It's not enough. The omen has claws more like a bear's than a dog's and it lifts is paws to strike at him. He dodges one, two, but the third catches him hard across the shoulder and sends him flying. He hits the fence head-first and when he rolls over, looking dazedly up at a perfect blue sky, the sun is blocked by a massive shadow.

The Black Dog's head sways, teeth on display. It opens its maw wide…

And is hauled backward by a small hand with neon-blue nail polish.

Dean sits up, blinking in the sunlight that suddenly hits his face.

Chi, wearing an extremely peeved expression, holds the beast by the scruff with her left hand while it thrashes ineffectually at her feet.

Dean sees her face tighten when her eyes move over Singer lying with his ribs pulled open and Ben crouched against the front door holding his streaming arm.

"I will fix this," she says, voice positively luminous with power. The Dog's single eye rolls at the sound and it cowers, though its lips are still peeled back in a blood-and-ivory grimace.

There's something like ripple in the air around the angel – for a second Dean thinks he sees a pair of spreading wings – and then both she and the Dog are gone.

He gets to his feet and stumbles over to Ben, pulling off his button-down to wrap around the boy's savaged arm. Ben makes a pained noise in his throat, tears streaming down his face again, but doesn't cry out. When Dean helps him to his feet, he hangs on hard and presses his face to Dean's side.

Dean wraps both arms around him, and hugs him as tightly as he can.


	3. Sung His Last Song

**AN: **Crazybookworm95 posed a good question that some of you are probably wondering about. To answer it without giving too much away, this fic is still developing even as I'm writing it, but I can tell you it won't be an AU for season six. I'm just trying to show how Dean would/could be settling with Ben and Lisa (and Chi, ha) and give a kind of lead up to season six.

**

* * *

3 - Sung His Last Song**

Its one of the hardest things he's ever had to do.

"Lisa?"

She knows him well enough by this point to hear the miniscule tremor in his voice.

"What's wrong? Dean? What's happened?"

He knows her well enough to hear the anxiety building in her voice, and knows what her next question will be.

"Is Ben okay?"

"He's going to be fine."

"_Going_ to be?"

Dean sighs. "Yeah…Lisa, something attacked the badger, Ben tried to fight it off and it…it broke his arm."

He hears her make a soft choking noise.

"It's a pretty bad break and they're going to have to straighten it in theater. He's scheduled for tonight, so they've got him on a morphine drip for, uh, for the pain." Dean pinches the bridge of his nose. His head hurts. "He's sleeping right now."

Lisa's breathing in soft, rushing sobs, and Dean wishes she were here, now. It's so hard to comfort someone over a phone line.

"Lise?"

"I'll be there in a minute."

He nods, even though she's not there to see it. "I'll stay with him."

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

There's a pause, and he knows she's struggling not to cry.

"Thank you," she breathes.

* * *

Dean's watching the kid sleep when Lisa gets there.

"Dean…"

He looks up and she pauses, eyes widening as she takes in the darkening bruise along his jaw and cheekbone, the bandages that show in slashes of white from under the edges of his collar and right sleeve.

"Oh, God, it got you too," she breathes.

He tries to smile, wincing when the muscles in his face pang. "Looks worse than it is…"

She shakes her head, eyes welling, and reaches out to him. He puts his face in her hands – cool, soft – and closes his eyes. He feels her gently stroke the bruises, her fingers combing his hair and finding the stitches at the back of his skull.

"Nurse said it won't scar," he rasps. He opens his eyes and meets hers. "So, no premature bald patch for me, right?"

She gives him a brief smile, eyes full and close to flowing over. He can't stand it.

"C'mere." He takes her hands and pulls her to him.

Lisa sniffs and tries to wipe her face. "No, Dean, you're hurt."

"Lise. C'mere."

He pulls her sideways onto his lap so that she can put her arm over his uninjured shoulder, her lips against temple.

They curl together, and watch Ben sleep.

Half an hour later he comes round a little, fuzzy with morphine, blinking at them.

"Sweetheart," Lisa breathes, getting up and perching on the side of her son's bed. "Hey, how're you doing?"

"Mmph." Ben lifts his uninjured arm and rubs his eyes. "Feel weird…Mom?"

"Yeah, sweetie?"

"Where's Dad?"

Dean very carefully doesn't react, but Lisa draws a sudden breath in surprise and turns to look at him, eyes a little wide.

Ben follows her gaze, hand moving over the mattress to him. Dean rubs the boy's arm, hangs onto the offered hand.

"Hey, kiddo." His voice is still a rasp. "How's the arm?"

Ben appears to think about it. "S'okay. Doesn't hurt…" He trails off into a jaw-cracking yawn.

"Wanna get some more sleep?"

Ben shakes his head, but he's drifting already. "Did…" he swallows and tries again. "Singer okay? You take him to the vet?"

Oh, crap…

"Ben, buddy," oh, man, this genuinely hurts, "Singer…Singer's dead, Ben. He hung on, for a while, but he…"

The boy shakes all over, and Dean thinks with intense pain of Sam when he was this age. When they stayed that time in Oregon, and that old dog used to follow his kid brother wherever he went. They stayed for a month – a _month_ – but Sam kicked up the biggest fuss you ever saw when Dad found a job two states over and packed them up to go. He even tried to bring the damn thing with them, but Dad said no. He remembered that dog crying and crying as the Impala carried them away, heartbroken wails sounding behind them until they were out of earshot. Dad's face was made of stone, and Sam had simply stared out the window, shaking, with tears streaming down his face.

Ben usually looks like Dean – something that makes him puzzle over Lisa's claim that the kid's not his – but right now…

Right now he looks just like Sam.

**

* * *

AN2:** Oh God, the angst. Remind me why I keep doing this?


	4. Silver Linings

**4 - Silver Linings**

When they get home Chi is there, looking miserable and small. Ben goes straight to her and awkwardly hugs her, trying not to knock her with his cast.

"I am so sorry," the little angel murmurs and Ben pulls back to look at her.

"Why?"

"I should have been there to defend you."

"Why weren't you?" Dean asks.

Chi looks positively woe-be-gone. "I was momentarily called away…though looking back the reason was relatively minor. The messenger should have come to me, not the other way 'round."

The small hairs on the back of Dean's neck rise. He narrows his eyes. "You think we were set up?"

Which he so does not need. Not right now. Not _ever_. He thought they were just beginning to get things right; he has a steady job, a home. He helps with homework each night with Ben, lets Lisa bully him into doing household chores, has family dinners, roars encouragement from the stands at the kid's ball games and sleeps in the same bed each night with the same women and these days? Mostly drifts off with a smile on his face.

And all this…this Heaven vs. Hell bullshit? Its not his life anymore, _damn it_. The only reason Chi's allowed to stay is because she's here to look after all of them. She's become a fixture. Lisa's taken to telling people she's their au pair (which Dean usually finds hilarious).

Right now there is nothing hilarious about the situation.

"Chi, that thing almost killed Ben and I –" Lisa grips his hand tightly – "and it did kill Singer."

The angel blinks at him. "What?"

"The damn Dog killed our badger, Chi."

Chi shakes her head. "No it didn't."

They all stare at her. "What do you mean?" asks Ben. "Dad said he was dead…"

"Well, he stopped breathing for a while, I'll grant you," Chi tells them matter-of-factly. "But he's not dead."

Ben looks like a light has come on behind his eyes. "Really?"

"I did say I would fix things. I put him back in the garden to sleep. Which is better now," she adds, turning to Lisa. "The Dog made a terrible mess of it, but it's fixed."

"Oh," Lisa says faintly. "Thank you."

Chi beams.

"What about the Dog?" Dean asks when Ben has taken off out back to go check on his stripy friend (they can hear Ben talking and laughing, and soft, cheerful badger-grumbles from Singer). "Did you kill it?"

"Well, no."

"…what?" he says sharply.

"I just took it away."

Something about the way she says it makes Dean suspicious. "Took it where, Chi?"

"Oh, you know, Antarctica," she tells them, carelessly flipping one hand, "about two hundred feet below the Ross Ice Shelf."

Lisa freezes in the middle of putting coffee on and stares. So does Dean.

"In all probability it's been eaten by a sperm whale by now," Chi says. Then adds thoughtfully, "or a colossal squid."

"Right," says Dean, "well that's one way of doing it."

Three weeks later Ben's got a new fiberglass cast in dark blue. By this point it's already a mess of names and doodles from the kids in his class. He tells people a rabid dog got into the back yard and attacked him and his dad, but that the au pair helped scare it off.

Chi is extra vigilant, and stalks about the place like a little cat with her back up, all wild brown hair and ridiculously blue eyes. She reminds Dean of Cas; not just in the resemblance between vessels, but the way she carries herself now. (Though she still hasn't got the hang of landings, and has a tendency to crash into furniture whenever she flutters into the house.)

Lisa keeps giving Dean these long, thoughtful looks that alternately make him preen or shuffle uncomfortably. Then she'll smile, and go back to whatever she's doing. He wonders what she's thinking when she looks at him like that, but never asks.

Life sinks back into its semblance of normal, with two exceptions.

Ben calls Dean 'Dad'…and appears to now be afraid of dogs.

Dean's quite enamored of the first development, but not terribly happy about the second.

So, of course, he decides to do something about it.

**

* * *

AN:** I'm sorry, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't kill Singer. I mean come on. What's the use of having an angel around the house if she doesn't resurrect brutally savaged family pets?


	5. Only One Woof

**5 – Only One Woof**

He calls Lisa from the garage, tells her he's going to be home late and drives out to his destination. The package makes driving back a little awkward, but Dean tells himself its all for a good cause.

He parks the Impala in the drive, and sits for a minute, before sighing to himself and getting out.

"Either this works, or I'm getting skinned alive," he mutters into the collar of his jacket.

When he gets in Lisa's already got dinner on and the table set.

She kisses him hello and looks a little puzzled when he doesn't immediately take his coat off.

"Where's Ben?"

"In the living room."

Dean heads off.

"You're not going to take your coat off?" she calls after him.

"Nope," he calls back.

Ben is indeed in the living room, playing a solo round of Ultra-Mega-Deathmatch 5, or whatever the hell it's called. Chi usually plays with him, but Dean can see the faint glow coming from under the back door that means she's tending to the garden again.

Dean takes a seat on the couch beside the boy. "Wanna pause that for a second?"

Ben does, and gives him a puzzled look identical to his mother's when he sees Dean is still wearing his coat.

"So," Dean says, "got someone for you to meet."

"Yeah –?"

_Woof._

Ben freezes.

Dean's coat wriggles and small yellow muzzle appears from under his collar and puts its cold nose against the underside of Dean's jaw.

"Uh, yeah," Dean says, smiling.

The puppy, now completely awake, wriggles about until he can stick his head out of the coat and look about. He spots Ben and grins.

Ben appears less enthusiastic. He looks uncertainly at the puppy, then back at Dean.

"Ben, it's okay, honest." Dean takes the pup out of his coat and rests it in his lap, where it immediately begins to wriggle. "Would y'sit still already, jeez. C'mon, hey, who's that?" He points to Ben and tries to get the little dog to pay attention.

Miracle of miracles, the pup catches sight of Ben again and wags his fluffy tail furiously.

"Dad…"

"Its okay, Ben, its fine. He's not going to bite you."

The pup wobbles off Dean's lap and nearly face-plants Ben's. Ben puts his hands back and stares. The pup finds Ben's sleeve and chews on it.

"Well, he might nibble," Dean amends. He clears his throat. "So, Ben, this is Bones."

He rubs the baby retriever's yellow ears and takes Ben's hand, guiding it over the pup's back and shoulders.

"Bones, this is Ben…"


	6. Everything is Okay

**AN:** Okay, so clearly this was blown clean out of the water by Season Six, and oh _my_ God, what is going on with that, by the way? But in any case, I'm just going to carry on as normal and do my little segue into it as though it weren't a pile of crazy hot of the press. So, back to a life less cruddy with Ben, Bones and a backyard badger.

Of course, this is Supernatural, and the one constant is trouble on the horizon…

**

* * *

6 – Everything is Okay**

"This was your idea," Lisa reminds him.

And it was. It really was, and he honestly can't say that it was a bad one, because Ben is stampeding about over their lawn with a yipping golden shape at his heels, and both boy and dog are grinning.

But Dean really hadn't pictured his otherwise pleasant afternoon ending with him scrapping dog-shit off the sole of his left shoe.

Lisa smiles – well, her smile gets bigger – and she gestures to the side of the rear patio. "Just leave them there, sweetheart, we'll deal with them later." She hands him a beer and puts her feet in his lap when he collapses beside her on the swing-seat.

There's one moment when he feels a breath of cold on the back of his neck – a benediction, a beacon, a warning – but it's just a cloud slipping over the sun. Seconds later, Chi pads around the side of the house, over-blown blue eyes smiling as she curls upon the porch steps and watches Ben and Bones. Singer trundles out of his set and sits at her feet to soak up the sun, and Dean knows that for the moment things are okay.

Things are okay…

* * *

"Anything?"

Chi gives him an anxious look, reminding him again of Cas during his more human days, and shakes her head.

"Whoever sent the Dog was very clever," she tells him, carefully keeping her voice low.

Ben is in his room and looked like he was sleeping when Dean checked on him, Bones a lump of fuzzy gold at the boy's feet, but Dean was an expert at feigning sleep at that age and wouldn't put it past Ben to be faking. The kid is smart, and curious.

"And there's no way to track…whatever-it-was that they used to summon it and sic it on us?"

_On me…_

Chi shakes her head again. "I will keep looking though, as will my companions. We are here to protect you, Dean, and your family," she tells him honestly, looking that little bit heartbroken that she almost failed at that task.

Dean takes pity on her – she's so young, really – and pats her shoulder. "I know, Chi."

She gives him a small smile and vanishes with the beat of phantom wings. When Dean looks up Lisa is in the living room doorway. He feels his heart clench a little. She pads over to him and puts her arms around him. He puts his face against her neck and breaths deep.

"I shouldn't be here," he mutters. "I…I shouldn't be bringing this crap down on you and Ben. That Dog came after me, Lise…"

"You are so full of shit," she murmurs affectionately. "And if you ever get it into your head to leave I will have Chi hunt you down and bring you right back. And _then_ you'll be sorry."

He huffs a laugh against her skin. "Guess you're stuck with me."

"Uh-huh. C'mon, bed."

"My favorite time of day," he quips weakly, letting her lead the way.

_Everything is okay_, he tells himself. _Right now, everything is okay…_


	7. Lightning Striking the Brain

**7 – Lightning Striking the Brain**

November 2nd rolls 'round, and Dean has scotch with dinner that night. Lisa asks if he's okay, and he hesitates before giving the affirmative. Ben is quiet and eats his greens without complaint, and when she sits, Lisa briefly squeezes Dean's hand under the table.

Dinner goes softly, if not smoothly…right up until there's a crash from the living room.

Dean is on his feet before he brain catches up and charges in, because it's been weeks since Chi landed there and hit anything and her sudden relapse can only be of the bad.

Sure enough when he sees her, she standing in the wreckage of the coffee table, eyes fixed on the front window that faces the street. He goes over to her and follows her gaze. For a bare second, he thinks he sees a figure…

Then the sodium-orange streetlamp flickers and there's nothing. Dean closes his eyes for a moment, aware that he hasn't been sleeping lately and there is no reason to freak out.

"Chi?" he asks.

She tears her eyes from the window. "Yes?"

"Everything okay?"

"Y-yes," she says, and the hesitation sends a spill of cold down his spine, but he pushes it down. "Yes, Dean, everything is fine." She straightens her shoulders. "I thought I felt something, but it is nothing dangerous."

"You sure?"

She nods. "Yes," she says again, "nothing more than a lost soul."

* * *

In the shadows across the street, hidden from the eyes of mortal and angel alike, something watches and stirs…

**

* * *

AN:** So there's my end of Season 5 tie-in for that weird Stalker!Sam scene. If anyone's seen the trailer for 6x07 you'll get the reference in Chi's little comment there.


End file.
